


Already Dead

by Whiskey_With_Patron



Series: Who You Gonna Call? [1]
Category: Hollywood Undead (Band)
Genre: Ghost Hunter AU, One Shot, Sort of a Crack Fic, also they commit arson because that just how chaotic they are, danny is a tired mom and the only responsible one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 00:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21290444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whiskey_With_Patron/pseuds/Whiskey_With_Patron
Summary: A team of ghost hunters, known commonly as The Undead, get called to a house very early on Halloween morning to take care of— well, a ghost. They face bloody messages on walls, collapsing floors and ceilings, and a room filled with mannequins. Y'know, the usual. And would it really be a proper ghost hunting expedition if something didn't go up in flames?
Series: Who You Gonna Call? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1580065
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	Already Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Belfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belfire/gifts).

> i'm gifting this to Belfire because reading their chaotic hollywood undead fics made me want to attempt my own slightly chaotic take on the boys. you're pretty cool, my dude.
> 
> i came up with this when i was very tired and i meant to finish it by halloween, but since i'm still working on Legends and a couple other fics, it didn't get done until now. also don't mind the slightly rushed ending, i'm Tired and this is the best i could do
> 
> it's pretty awful btw, but since it's done i figured i'd post it. enjoy (or don't)

It was one a.m. when they got the call.

Jorel took his toothbrush out of his mouth and snatched his phone off the counter. “Hello?” he said, his voice muffled by his toothpaste spit.

“You’re the Undead, right?”

He sighed and spat in the sink. “Yeah. Why?”

“We have a ghost problem.”

“Would you mind telling me exactly what it is?” he asked. He grabbed a towel and wiped his mouth. Why did these people have to call just as he was getting ready for bed?

“Well, we’ve been hearing noises in this house across the street.”

“Are you sure no one lives in it?”

“Jay, don’t be rude!” Danny’s voice called from outside the bathroom.

Jorel rolled his eyes and opened the bathroom door. “Why don’t you fuckin’ talk to them then?”

Danny stood up from the couch and walked up to Jorel. He snatched the phone from Jorel’s hand and held it up to his ear. “Hello, Daniel speaking, how many I help you?”

Jorel finished brushing his teeth as Danny conversed with the customer. He just wanted to have one night where they didn’t have to chase down ghosts. Was that too much to ask?

He shut off the light in the bathroom and brushed past Danny. Dylan was sitting on the couch, smoking a blunt, but he looked up as Jorel approached. “Ay, what up homie? We got a ghost?”

“Yep.” He flopped down on the couch next to Dylan. “You got any extra weed?”

Dylan stood up. “Yeah, hang on, man. I’ll get you something.”

Jorel lied down on the couch and waited for Danny to be done talking on his phone. After a few moments, he walked across the living room and tossed Jorel’s phone on the couch. “Get dressed, man. I’ll wake up the other two.”

Danny jogged up the stairs, and Jorel took his phone from the couch. He didn’t know why Danny was always so ready to chase down ghosts. He didn’t seem to enjoy it, but he was always the first one out the door when they had a customer.

“Yo.”

Dylan walked up to the couch and held a joint out to Jorel. “Let’s get our shit together.”

George hopped into the driver’s seat of the car. “You know this could just be a prank call, right? It’s Halloween, for fuck’s sake. It’s probably just a dumb teenager.”

Danny sat in the passenger seat. He rubbed at the bags under his eyes. He was dead tired, but he had to stay awake. “Yeah, but it couldn’t hurt to check.” He turned around to look at the other three as they piled into the backseat. “You guys good to go?”

Jordon shoved a pair of sunglasses on his face with a smile. “Hell yeah, bro. Let’s do it.”

“You don’t need sunglasses, it’s one in the morning,” George said. He shoved the keys in the ignition and the car roared to life.

Jorel kicked the back of Danny’s seat as they pulled out of the driveway. “Why can’t we just go back to sleep? It’s too early for this shit.”

Jordon nudged Jorel with his elbow. “Dude, come on. This is gonna be fun! As long as I actually get to catch the ghost this time.”

Dylan blew a cloud of smoke through the open window of the car. He hadn’t changed out of his pyjama pants and only wore bunny slippers over his feet. It was impossible to get him dressed when it was past ten p.m. He firmly believed that when the sun was down, it was illegal to wear anything but pyjamas.

He stuck his head out the window. “Yo homies, look at all the fuckin’ lights n’ shit!”

“It’s Halloween, Dylan,” George sighed. “Of course people have lights on their houses. They’re decorations.”

He leaned further out the window. “Nah bro, I ain’t talking about that shit. I mean the ghost ones. Y’know, the dead people.”

George rolled his eyes. Dylan was convinced that he could see ghosts when he was high. It was a ridiculous idea, but every time they tried to tell him that weed, in fact, did _not_ give him the power to see dead people, he ignored them.

Jorel grumbled under his breath and took a hit from his own joint. “This is pointless.”

Jordon leaned forward and poked his head into the front area of the car. “Guys, I have to pee.”

“Why didn’t you go before we left?” Danny asked.

“I didn’t have to go then!”

“There might be an empty Snapple bottle somewhere in the back,” George suggested.

“He is not peeing in the car!” Danny protested.

“I have before!” Jordon said, rummaging around on the floor of the vehicle for the supposed Snapple bottle.

Danny sighed and gave up on telling Jordon not to take a piss in the vehicle. When Jordon put his mind to something, no one could convince him not to do it. If he wanted to pee in the car, he would pee in the car.

Jorel scowled. “Dude, don’t take your dick out here.”

“How else am I supposed to pee?”

George tried to ignore their bickering as he peered out the windshield for the house they were supposed to investigate. “Danny, what was the address?”

“22 Oddity Court,” Danny said. “It’s on a cul-de-sac.”

“Yeah, I figured that when you said ‘court’,” George grumbled. He spotted a sign on the side of the road that read “Oddity Court” and steered the car towards the break in the street.

They turned onto the cul-de-sac. Danny saw a group of three teenagers standing on the lawn of one house. “I think that’s them.”

George pulled the car over to the curb and parked. “Okay. Let’s get us a fuckin’ ghost.”

They opened the doors of the car and stepped outside. The three kids on the lawn rushed up to the car. One of them clutched a cell phone in her grasp. Each one glanced around with wide eyes as if they were afraid something was chasing them.

“So what’s the problem?” George asked as soon as they approached.

The teenager with the phone blinked. “Uh... there’s a ghost in a house.”

“We are going to need a few more details,” Danny prompted. “We can’t catch a ghost if we don’t know what to watch out for and without some idea of what kind of ghost it might be.”

One of the kids elbowed the one with the phone. “Uh,” she started. “Well, it’s been making a lot of noises. Screaming and stuff. We went up to the house to see if anyone was in there, and someone threw a bottle out the window and it smashed on the street.” She pointed to a pile of glass shards on the concrete.

George and Danny exchanged a knowing glance. “Listen kids,” George said, “I’m pretty sure this is a case for the police, not a bunch of ghost hunters.”

“It sounds more like someone just got mad at their spouse and is maybe fighting with them,” Danny agreed. “It doesn’t sound like a safe situation, so the police—”

“No one’s lived in that house in twenty years!” one of the other kids blurted. “And we didn’t see anyone in the window when they threw the bottle.”

“It’s not like the police took us seriously anyway,” the other kid muttered.

Jorel furrowed his brow. “You already called the police?”

All three teenagers nodded. “They investigated the house,” said the one with the phone. “They didn’t find anything and told us to forget it.”

“They thought we were pranking them,” another kid grumbled.

George and Danny looked at each other. George still thought it was a prank and that these kids were only trying to get sympathy by pretending they already called the cops, but one expectant look from Danny convinced him to at least give this case a chance.

He heaved a great sigh. “What house is it?”

One of the teenagers turned and pointed at the end of the cul-de-sac. A huge house towered above them. The black shingles on the roof almost blended into the night sky. The wood was painted dark grey, and the paint had chipped and peeled away in some places. Two dark windows gaped at them from the top floor, glaring down at them like a pair of eyes. Lightning cracked across the sky, turning the house into a solid black silhouette for a split second. Jordon almost jumped six feet in the air as thunder boomed along with it..

Dylan scratched his chin. “Is it supposed to rain or something?”

Danny tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in his stomach. “Jorel, could you grab the flashlights?”

Jorel grumbled through his joint, but he turned to the car and rummaged around in the backseat. He grabbed something and tossed it over his shoulder, and it landed right in Dylan’s hands.

Dylan stared down at the Snapple bottle in his hands. “Ooh, Snapple.”

He started to twist the bottle open, and Danny rushed forward to wrestle it from his hands. Jorel tossed a flashlight to George, who sighed and flicked it on.

“Let’s go.”

The old wooden door swung open with a creak. Danny pointed his flashlight inside and peered around. He felt along the wall for a light switch. He found one and turned it on, but the house stayed dark.

“Why does no one at these haunted places pay their electricity bill?” Jordon asked, following Danny into the house.

“Because no one fucking lives in them,” Jorel pointed out. He took another hit from his joint. “Can we just get this over with so I can go to fucking sleep?”

“Shut up,” Danny said. “And stop smoking.”

Jorel pointed to Dylan, who was closely examining a record player on a table against the wall. “He smokes more than I do!”

“But I finished my blunt outside,” Dylan pointed out. “And I get happy when I’m high. You get all edgy and emo.”

“He’s not wrong,” Jordon said. He tossed his flashlight from one hand to the other. “So, a screaming ghost? I’m not hearing any—”

Music began blaring from the record player, and all five of them jumped in surprise. Jordon shrieked and jumped into Dylan’s arms.

George walked up to the record player and moved the needle off the spinning record. “Did you do something?” he asked Dylan.

Dylan shook his head. “No way, homie. I didn’t touch it.” He set Jordon on the ground. “You’re heavy, man.”

Jordon clung to Dylan’s arm. “I don’t like this place.”

“Well, we gotta check it out,” Danny said. “If this place is haunted, we have to find this ghost and get rid of it.”

“I say we split up,” George suggested. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”

Dylan nodded. “Sure thing, Fred.” He turned to Jordon. “Let’s go, Scooby Doo.”

“Hells yeah,” Jordon said. He and Dylan walked towards the doorway to the right of the room and disappeared in the darkness.

Jorel took another hit from his joint. “I’ll yell if I see any ghosts.” He made a beeline for the stairs that twisted into the ceiling of the room.

George turned to Danny. “Let’s go, Daphne.”

Danny’s face fell. “Why do I have to be Daphne?”

“Do I look like a Daphne to you?”

Danny sighed. “No.”

George started for the doorway on the left, and Daphne— sorry, _Danny_ followed after him.

Danny and George shone their flashlights around the living room. Old paintings of old people hung from the walls. Couches and armchairs covered in white sheets littered the floor, and an empty fireplace was embedded in the wall.

“This place is creepy,” Danny muttered.

George shone his light on one of the paintings. It wasn’t that interesting, just a portrait of an old man. “Feels like they’re watching me, dude. Look at its eyes.”

Danny followed George’s gaze to the painting. “That looks like Jorel in the morning.”

George snorted. “Yeah, no shit.”

Danny shuffled across the room, one hand in the pocket of his jacket. “So, where do you think a ghost would be in here?”

“I’d guess the basement,” George admitted. He bent down to look at one of the couches. “Isn’t that usually where shit goes down in horror movies?”

“Guess so.” Danny walked up to a bookshelf set against the wall. He reached out and pulled a book off the shelf. It was a thick novel with a dusty cover. “I wonder what—?”

He yelped as the book flew from his hand and tumbled across the floor. The cover slammed open, and the pages whipped from one side to the other as if a strong wind was blowing across the room.

George rushed over to Danny. More books plummeted from the shelves and hit the ground. He grabbed Danny’s arm and pulled him behind a couch as pages began to rip themselves from the binding of their novels and fly through the air like they were caught in a tornado. Wind whipped past the two of them, sending Danny’s jacket fluttering. He and George huddled closer to the couch to avoid getting shredded by paper cuts.

“What the fuck is going on?” George shouted. He cried out in alarm when a painting fell off the wall and crashed to the ground.

“I don’t know!” Danny peeked over the couch at the books. The now empty bookshelf tilted forward and crashed into the floor. He flinched at the sound and ducked back behind the couch.

“We’ve gotta get out of here!” George shouted over the wind.

Danny glanced around frantically for anything that might help them. Nothing seemed particularly useful, but then again, he was _very_ tired and probably couldn’t tell the difference between a pineapple and a watermelon right now.

George looked over the couch. “Hey, look!”

He pointed to the wall where the bookshelf had been. In its place was a gaping hole in the wall. Danny pointed his light at it and saw a set of stairs leading downward.

Dylan gasped. “The place where shit goes down!” He hopped over the couch. “Let’s go!”

George followed him over the couch and towards the new doorway. Danny put up his hood in an attempt to protect himself from the pages that flew into them. George just held his arms above his head. He almost stumbled down the stairs when he ran up to them, but Danny grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back.

George righted himself and looked down the stairs. “Well.”

Danny glanced back at the swirling pages behind them. “Alright then. Let’s catch a motherfuckin’ ghost.”

He started down the stairs, flashlight swinging, and George followed after him.

Jorel leaned down to examine an old computer on a desk. It was always weird finding technology in haunted houses. Sometimes he forgot that not all haunted places were hundreds of years old.

The upstairs area wasn’t too exciting. A few paintings hung from the walls, and a couch sat against the wall. A TV on a coffee table sat in front of it. Everything was coated in a fine layer of dust. He swiped a finger against the top of the desk, and it came away grey.

“Does shit really get this dusty in twenty years?” he mumbled. He turned away from the computer and turned to the couch. He was still tired, and the joint he’d burned through wasn’t helping. Maybe he could just lie down and have a quick nap.

Jorel flopped down on the couch, sending up a cloud of dust. He coughed in to his fist and waved it away. Once the dust had settled, he leaned back, resting his hands behind his head. He heaved a content sigh, satisfied that he finally got the rest he would have gotten had they stayed at the house. And Danny wasn’t even there to tell him off.

The Windows start-up sound exploded from the speakers of the computer at a deafening volume. He shrieked and toppled off the couch. He smacked his hands over his ears to block out the noise.

The sound slowly faded, and he sat up and peeked over the coffee table at the computer on the desk. The screen had lit up blue, with the Windows XP logo right in the middle, which should have been impossible. If no one lived here since 1999, they shouldn’t have even had Windows XP. That was released in October 2001! He didn’t know how he knew the specific release date, but it was just one of the many weird facts that rolled around in his brain and only presented themselves to him when he was high or drunk.

He pushed himself to his feet and pointed his flashlight at the desk. “Hello?” he called to the empty room. “Ghost? You here?”

Silence. Jorel hesitantly tiptoed over to the desk. He set his flashlight down and stared at the screen. A keyboard sat in front of the clunky monitor, along with a mouse. He wiggled the mouse, but the screen didn’t change. Nothing happened when he tapped the keys either. Then he realized that it was a really old computer and would probably take a few minutes to fully boot up. Unless he wanted to sit here for ages waiting for the computer’s programs to load, he should probably just move on.

He almost jumped out of his skin when static blared from the speaker of the TV. He snatched up his flashlight and scurried over to the nearest door. “Fuck this!” he shouted to the room.

The wood creaked beneath his feet as he ran. He stumbled as the wood bent, and the floor caved. A scream ripped from his throat as he fell through the floor. He expected to hit the ground of the first floor, but he crashed right through that too and plummeted into the basement.

The wind left his lungs in a sharp burst as he landed on his back. He groaned and slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows. Something fell down after him, and he rolled out of the way as his flashlight clattered to the ground. He hadn’t realized he’d dropped it in the fall.

He stood up and snatched up his light. He shone it around him and saw that he was in the middle of a pitch black hallway.

He stared into the darkness and sighed. “I fucking hate this job.”

Dylan shone his light at one of the paintings on the wall. “Do you think it’s normal to have this many paintings in one house?” he asked Jordon.

Jordon shrugged as he continued down the hallway they were in. “No idea, man.”

Dylan left the painting behind and hurried after Jordon. They walked up to the door at the end of the hallway, and Jordon put his free hand on the handle. “I hope the ghost doesn’t end up being in a bathroom or some shit,” he mumbled.

He turned the handle and pushed the door open. He and Dylan poked their heads through the doorway and glanced from side to side. A kitchen counter protruded from the wall. Behind it was a stove atop an oven, and a fridge sat next to it. To the far right was a dining table surrounded by old wooden chairs.

“We’re clear?” Jordon asked.

Dylan nodded. “Think so.”

The two of them stepped inside. Dylan found the light switch and tried to flick it on, and miraculously, the old light bulbs illuminated the room.

Jordon shut off his flashlight. “Why does the kitchen have power?”

“No idea, man,” Dylan replied. He tossed his flashlight from one hand to the other. “You think the stuff in the fridge is still good?”

“It would be, like, twenty years old,” Jordon reminded him.

Dylan set his flashlight on the counter and walked up to the fridge. “Yeah, but I got the munchies.” He grabbed the handle and pulled the fridge door open. “Aww. Empty.”

Jordon hopped up onto the counter and grabbed for the door of a cupboard. The door slammed open of its own accord. He snatched his hand back. “Hey, chill out, ghost.” He peered inside the cupboard, but it was empty.

He shut the cupboard as Dylan shut the fridge. Dylan walked over to the dining table, the fur from his bunny slippers sweeping the ground. “Man, what’s a guy gotsta do to get some fuckin’ food around here?”

Jordon shrugged. “I’m pretty sure ghosts don’t care about hospitality.”

Another cupboard slammed open. “What?” Jordon said. “It’s true.”

Dylan nodded. “Yeah, this place is creepy. It’s making me loco, homes.”

“At least there are no paintings in here,” Jordon pointed out.

They shrieked in unison as one of the light bulbs exploded. The light went out, and glass shards sprayed across the room.

Dylan and Jordon exchanged a glance. “Move on?” Jordon asked.

Dylan nodded frantically. The two of them took their flashlights in hand and left the kitchen.

They tiptoed back down the hall. The wooden floor creaked beneath their feet. Dylan stared up at the paintings. He could have sworn that the eyes of some of them were following him, but then again, that could just be the weed in his system fucking with his head. Then again, the effects had begun to wear off a little, so maybe he wasn’t imagining things.

“Dude,” Jordon whispered. “Is it just me, or are these paintings watching us?”

Dylan nodded. “It ain’t just you, homie. I got fuckin’ chills.”

They kept their eyes on the paintings as they passed. When they finally emerged back in the entrance room, they both heaved a sigh of relief. A few paintings were still hung on the walls here, but none of them seemed to be staring at the two brave ghost hunters.

Dylan walked through the room towards the door that Danny and George had gone through. “So, you wanna find the others and tell ‘em we found nothi—”

His sentence trailed into a yelp as he stumbled over something on the floor. He tripped and fell, hitting his head on the wood with a pained squeak.

Dylan turned over and pushed himself up so he was sitting. “What the hell?”

Jordon pointed his flashlight at the floor where Dylan had tripped. He grimaced in disgust and took a step back. “Eww.”

A huge black rat lied dead on the floor. Blood leaked from a gash on its side and pooled around it. The two of them backed away. Dylan put a hand over his mouth.

“I ain’t got the munchies anymore, homie,” he said.

Jordon scanned the room with his flashlight. After a moment, he found what he was looking for.

Blood dripped down the wall behind the twisting staircase. He and Dylan walked up to it, and Jordon noticed that the blood hadn’t been carelessly splattered against the wood. It had been carefully painted on in the shapes of letters.

Dylan gazed up at the wall. “‘Get out of my body’? Y’know, out of all the bloody wall messages we’ve seen, this is one of the weirdest.”

Jordon blinked. “Can you even get that much blood from a rat?”

Dylan glanced back at the dead animal. “I dunno, homie. It is a big-ass rat. If I was higher, I’d probably think it was a dog.”

Jordon decided not to dwell on what the message meant. Ghosts liked to write ominous things on walls all the time to scare them away.

Dylan furrowed his brow. “Hey, was that door there before?”

Jordon followed his gaze. In the wall next to the blood was a rickety wooden door. The two of them debated with themselves for a moment, but they ultimately decided that it couldn’t hurt to take a look.

They walked up to the door. The doorknob was long gone, so at first, they were afraid it wouldn’t open, but Dylan kicked it and it swung open. The hinges squeaked, and they pointed their flashlights on the staircase below. The stairs were riddled with holes, and they groaned in protest as Jordon stepped on them.

“Looks safe to me!” Dylan exclaimed. He hopped onto the stairs, ignoring the loud creaking as he sprinted down into the basement.

Danny stepped off the last stair and shone his flashlight around the basement. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this, man.”

George nodded. “You’re not the only one. I don’t like basements.”

The two of them started through the large cement room. “Are you sure we should have split up?” Danny asked. “The other three are basically toddlers. We leave them alone for two minutes, and they almost blow up the house.”

“Or Dylan covers himself in whipped cream and throws himself over every piece of furniture in the house while Jordon records it and Jorel raids his weed stash,” George added.

Danny sighed. “I still don’t know where he got that much whipped cream.”

“They’re probably fine,” George reassured him. “They can be capable adults when they need to be.”

Danny stopped walking and stared at George for making such a ridiculous statement. “Jordon peed in a Snapple bottle,” Danny reminded him.

George shrugged. “But he didn’t make a mess.”

“He pissed in the car! Who _does_ that?”

“Jordon does.”

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose like he was getting a headache. “I’m the only sane one in this fucking family.” He brushed past George and started through the room again.

George rolled his eyes, but he followed Danny. The room was totally empty, which they thought was odd for a basement. Most people used them like storage rooms, but everything seemed to be upstairs.

Something about this basement felt weird to them. Of course, the whole house did because of the ghost and whatnot, but the basement just seemed... _extra_ peculiar.

They approached a hallway. After a quick glance inside to make sure nothing would jump out at them, they stepped into the corridor. The temperature dropped immediately, sending chills up their spines.

George yelped when the lights in the ceiling flicked on. Danny raised an eyebrow at him and lowered his hand from the light switch. “Jumpy much?”

George cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure. “No. Just cautious.”

Danny stepped away from the wall. They made their way down the hall side by side. They glanced at the doors on either side, just in case one of them suddenly swung open and revealed a crazy murderous ghost, but nothing happened.

“I still think we shouldn’t have left them alone,” Danny said.

“Just trust them,” George sighed. “They can handle themselves.”

“Last time you said that, Jordon got stuck in the washing machine and Jorel got one of his ear gauges stuck up Dylan’s nose.”

“Point taken,” George mumbled. “But ghost hunting is different. I’m sure they’re fine.”

They fell into silence. Danny was still worried about the other three, but he figured George was right. They were usually fine when hunting ghosts.

They both jumped when they heard a loud bang behind them. They spun around and stared down the hallway. The entrance of the corridor had been blocked off by a wall of cement.

Danny blinked. “What the...?”

George walked back towards where they came from, and Danny followed, not wanting to be left behind in this crazy-ass house. George reached out to touch the cement wall, just to see if it was real. Unfortunately, it was.

“Shit,” Danny muttered.

The lightbulb above them exploded into shards, and they screamed in unison. “Fuck this!” Danny shouted. He grabbed George’s sleeve and dragged him back down the hallway.

George heard a cracking sound above him and looked up as they made their way through the hall. Cracks snaked across the cement ceiling, and rocky dust rained down on them.

They jumped as another lightbulb burst behind them. They broke into a run just as the ceiling caved. Cement smashed into the ground, missing George by a hair.

Dust fluttered down around them as cracks spread across the ceiling. Chunks of concrete crashed down behind them and lightbulbs ahead of them exploded into glass bits, plunging them into darkness. Danny shone his flashlight ahead, frantically searching for a way out.

The end of the hallway came into sight and they quickened their pace. They leaped through the opening and tumbled across the ground just as the ceiling caved and sealed off the hallway.

Dust floated over them. Danny coughed and pushed himself to his feet. “What the hell just happened?”

George shone his light at the remains of the ceiling. “I mean, it is an old house. Maybe it was just ready to break?”

Danny couldn’t help but shudder. This wasn’t normal. He was pretty sure the house wasn’t that old. Besides, a sudden cave in would have to be triggered by something. Neither of them had even touched the ceiling.

Danny shook his head and turned his attention to the room they were in. There was a door in each wall. Each one was old and rickety. One was missing a door handle.

George heaved a sigh. “I’m too old for this.”

Jorel let his mind wander as he walked through the hall he’d fallen into. He hadn’t found anything interesting so far. There weren’t even any doors in the hall that might lead to something useful. The wooden ceiling eventually turned to cement, and he found himself silently praying it wouldn’t cave in on him.

His spirits rose when he spotted a door at the end of the hall. He rushed towards it, hoping he would find something inside to at least cure his boredom.

Jorel pulled the door open and his stomach dropped immediately.

The room was filled with mannequins.

God, he _hated_ mannequins! They were so creepy! Not as creepy as clowns, sure, but they were a close second. Why in hell would someone have a room full of mannequins?

Then he noticed that each one was wearing clothes. Some of the outfits were unfinished, torn seams in some places and tape measures pinned around the waists of others. Maybe the ghost had been a seamstress before they died.

An old sewing machine sat on a desk in the corner. He kept one eye on the mannequins as he approached the desk. Logically, he knew they couldn’t move, but he’d seen some crazy shit during their ghost-hunting adventures. Inanimate objects moving on their own, appliances turning off and on as is their want— it was all pretty crazy. If these mannequins started moving, he would not hesitate to throw them out the window.

Or run away screaming. Whichever came to mind first.

Jorel walked up to the desk and peered down at the sewing machine. There was no spool of thread in the machine, but a needle was poised over the base.

He reached out and poked the sewing machine. Nothing happened, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

He turned back to the door. His squeaked and skittered backwards, staring at the mannequin that seemed to have appeared behind him. He glanced around frantically and saw that the heads of every mannequin in the room was turned to face him. Their eyeless gazes bored into him, and his heart thumped louder in his chest.

A chill snaked down Jorel’s spine. He changed his mind— mannequins were _definitely_ creepier than clowns.

He kept his gaze fixed on the mannequin that had appeared behind him as he slowly made his way to the door. “Sorry to run off so quickly,” he said to the room, “but I’m pretty sure I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

He felt something brush against the back of his neck and whirled around. Another mannequin was frozen in place right behind him, its hand extended towards him as if it was going to strangle him.

The sewing machine started up, the needle reduced to a blur as it stabbed the air. He scrambled away and bumped against a mannequin. A snap echoed through the air as the needle hit the base of the machine and broke in half.

He spotted a door across from the one that led him to this room and ran towards it in a panic. He threw it open and slammed it shut as soon as he was outside. Something thumped into the door behind him. He could still hear the sound of the sewing machine rattling inside.

“Jinkies,” he breathed.

“Jorel?”

He screamed and pointed his flashlight at the room in front of him. Danny and George stood there, breathing heavily. A pile of broken concrete sat behind them. Danny’s pink hair was tousled, and George’s clothes were rumpled like he’d just rolled out of bed.

Jorel blinked at them, his slightly high mind trying to register the scene. “Were you two making out or something?”

Danny blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

Jorel waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind. Where are the other two?”

“Hopefully they were smart enough to get out of here,” George muttered.

“It’s Dylan and Jordon,” Danny reminded him. “They have one brain cell each. They haven’t left.”

Dylan stared around the basement. “_Odelay_,” he muttered. “This is fuckin’ creepy.”

Jordon nodded in agreement as they scanned the room. It was much colder here than in the rest of the house, which made him wish that he’d kept on his warm pyjamas like Dylan had. Water pipes clung to the walls. A small puddle had formed at the edge of the floor where one of the pipes was leaking. A huge water tank resided in the corner.

Jordon walked up to the water tank and kicked it. A metallic clang echoed through the room.

Dylan’s flashlight swept the room. “So if they got plumbing, you think the toilets still work? I gotta pee, homie.”

Jordon shrugged. “It’s not our house, bro. Just piss in a corner.”

Dylan considered the option. Then he shrugged and walked over to the puddle near the wall. “Lemme know if any spooks sneak up on us, a’ight?”

“You got it, Dyl.”

Jordon turned back to the water pipes in the walls and paid no mind to the sounds of Dylan peeing. He never thought of plumbing as particularly scary, but something about the way the pipes twisted around each other reminded him of diagrams of intestines he’d studied in high school. It just looked a little too human for his taste.

The sounds of trickling liquid ceased, and a moment later, Dylan joined him at the water tank. “See anything, homes?”

“Nope.” Jordon stepped away from the water tank.

He heard a quiet hissing noise behind him and turned around. One of the pipes had sprung a leak. Water sprayed through the air, and the two of them exchanged an apprehensive glance.

“Hey, ghost?” Dylan called. “Sorry I peed in your house, but like... when you gotta go, you gotta go, man. You don’t have to get mad about it.”

Another pipe creaked, and a stream of water burst from the wall. The pipes above their heads groaned. Dylan looked up at them as water began to drip from the ceiling.

Jordon clutched Dylan’s sleeve. “Ruh roh.”

Every pipe in the room exploded. Jordon and Dylan ran for the nearest door and flung it open as water flooded into the room. They dived through the doorway and tumbled to the ground. Water washed over the floor around them.

Dylan glanced back. The room wasn’t even knee deep underwater, and most of it was flooding out the open door anyway. Turns out, the pipes bursting weren’t nearly as dangerous as they had previously thought. Maybe it was because the house was old and the plumbing had been cut off for a while.

“Speak of the devils.”

Jordon and Dylan, now both soaking wet from their time on the watery floor, waved at the three of them. “Sup homies?” Dylan said.

Something banged on the door behind Jorel’s back. Jorel braced his feet against the ground and pushed back on it. “Stay the fuck in there, you nightmare fuel!”

George looked at the pile of broken concrete that had sealed off the hallway he and Danny ran from. “None of this is normal,” he muttered. “The power only works in random places, the ceilings and floors cave in for no reason— I don’t get it.”

“This definitely isn’t a usual ghost,” Danny agreed. “We have to find where it is before the whole house kills us.”

A crack appeared in the concrete above them. The five of them stared up at the ceiling, hoping it didn’t cave in on them.

Danny shone his flashlight at the one door in the room that none of them had been through yet. “I think that’s the only way we can go.”

“Figure that out yourself, Sherlock?” Jorel grumbled.

George shot a glare at him. “Don’t talk to Danny that way.”

“Let’s go, homies!” Dylan ran towards the door, his wet bunny slippers slapping the concrete. Jordon followed him, their wet (but miraculously still working) flashlights swinging.

Danny and George started after the two. Jorel shot a hesitant glance at the door he’d been holding closed, but nothing burst through, so he followed the others.

Dylan pushed the door open and they all filed through. Beyond the door was another long, dark hallway. Jordon spotted a light switch and flicked it on, but the old bulbs in the ceiling stayed dark.

“So where is this dead bitch?” Dylan asked to the empty hall, shining his light over the walls.

“We shouldn’t be disrespecting the ghost,” Danny scolded him.

Jordon snorted. “Too late for that.”

“I peed in the boiler room,” Dylan announced.

Danny shoved his flashlight in his pocket and buried his face in his hands. “What’s with you guys and peeing in places that aren’t toilets?”

George shrugged. “Well, when you gotta go—”

Danny swatted George’s arm. “Don’t defend him!”

Jorel groaned in exasperation. “Can we just get this shit done so I can sleep?”

Danny brushed past the others to get to the front of the group. “Come on. Let’s find this ghost.”

They started walking down the pitch black hallway. No doors or paintings lined the walls. It felt eerily empty. They couldn’t even see the end of the hall.

“Maybe we should get a ghost-o-meter or something,” Jordon suggested. “Y’know, like a ghost scanner. So we can find ghosts easier.”

“Those don’t work, Jordy,” Danny said. “Remember when Jay downloaded a ghost scanner app and it led us across the whole city?”

Jorel shrugged. “We found the ghost, though.”

“After three hours,” Danny pointed out. “And the ghost we were looking for ended up being in a fucking outhouse in a campsite.”

“Why is it taking so long to find this fucker?” George mumbled. “We usually at least have an idea of where the ghost is by now.”

Dylan scanned the walls and blocked out everyone’s voices as they spoke. He was too focused on the fact that his fluffy slippers were wet and that his feet were cold. He wanted to go home and toss them in the dryer, but unfortunately, they wouldn’t do that until they found the ghost.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw a hole in the wall. It was a small hole, barely noticeable, but he walked up to it and leaned down. He shone his flashlight into the hole.

An eye blinked back at him. He yelped and skittered away. The hole sealed over, and another one opened further down the hall.

The others turned around to look at Dylan. “What’s wrong?” Danny asked.

Dylan stared at the tiny hole in the wall. An idea sprouted in his head. “Wait a second.” He walked up to Jordon and thrust his flashlight into his hands. “Hold this.” He dug around in the pocket of his pyjama pants, desperately hoping it hadn’t gotten dropped in their adventure through the boiler room. Relief flooded his body as his hand closed around something.

As Dylan pulled a blunt from his pocket and started digging around for a lighter, Jorel’s eyes widened. “Dude, you’ve been holding out on me?”

George rolled his eyes. “Dylan, now is not the time to get high.”

Jordon and Dylan stared at him as if he’d just grown a second head. “_Any_ time is a good time to get high,” Jordon said.

Dylan took his lighter from his pocket and stuck the blunt in his mouth. “Hang on,” he muttered through the blunt.

“For the last time,” Danny sighed, “you can’t see ghosts when you’re high.”

Dylan mumbled incoherently in Spanish as he flicked his lighter. Somehow, the wet blunt caught, and smoke rose from his mouth as he took a hit.

“You’re gonna get the rest of us high, man,” George said. “Not that I’m complaining or anything, but now really isn’t the time.”

Dylan exhaled a cloud of smoke. Almost immediately, his eyes widened and he glanced around the room. “Whoa...”

Jordon leaned forward eagerly. “What is it?” He firmly believed in Dylan’s delusion that he could see ghosts when high, despite the many, many times Danny and George had told him otherwise.

Dylan took another hit and walked up to the wall. “I think...” He took the blunt from his mouth and pressed the lit end against the wall. The walls shook, and dust rained down on them. The sound of metal groaning within the walls met their ears.

Dylan stepped away and the walls stopped shaking. “The house _is_ the ghost.”

He relit his blunt, and Danny stared at him. “Holy shit, you’re right. That’s why this place is so different. The house is possessed.”

The walls trembled, and the five of them huddled closer together. “Then will it even let us out?” Jorel mumbled. “Because if it doesn’t I’m gonna start throwing hands.”

George shook his head. “Jay, you can’t fight the house—”

“I’m gonna,” Jorel insisted. “This ghost better get ready to catch these hands.”

Cracks slowly spread across the ceiling, and Danny grabbed Jorel’s arm and dragged him away from it. “Maybe we should stop provoking it. I don’t think that’s helping much.”

George put a hand on Jorel’s shoulder. “Yeah. Cool your jets, My Chemical Romance.”

“We just gotta find a way out, homies,” Dylan said.

Jordon raised his hand like a kid in school. “Ooh! Ooh! I have an idea! We burn the house down!”

Danny studied Jordon for a moment to see if he was serious. “Jordon,” he said finally. “We can’t just burn down a house.”

Jordon spread his hands. “Why not? It’s just a little arson!”

Jorel nodded in approval. “I like arson.”

“Sounds fun,” Dylan agreed.

Danny turned to George. “George? Back me up here?”

George scratched his chin. “Well, if we’re trying to get rid of the ghost...”

Danny put his face in his hands again. The others could practically feel the stress he was experiencing at the thought of burning down a house with three incompetent grown children and an only slightly responsible adult.

Finally, he raised his head again and looked at each of the others in turn. Dylan smoking a blunt in his soaking wet pyjamas, Jordon with his now crooked sunglasses and an equally crooked smirk, Jorel radiating chaotic emo energy, and George staring intently at Danny like he actually thought that burning down a house was a good idea.

Danny heaved a huge sigh. “Let’s find some gasoline.”

Dylan and Jordon stared proudly at the blazing house. “We did good, homie,” Dylan said.

Danny brushed past them, speaking to someone on his phone. “No, officer, we didn’t start the fire. We were here hunting a ghost and it just burst into flames.” He paused and stopped in his tracks. “Yes, it’s perfectly normal for ghosts to set things on fire.” Another pause. “Some ghosts are more powerful than others. Most fires, we put out ourselves. And even if the ghost didn’t start it, Dylan might have just dropped the end of a blunt somewhere and it caught.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Officer, weed is legal here. You can’t arrest him for smoking it.” He rolled his eyes. “Listen, if it’s an empty house and no one’s owned it in twenty years, smoking on the property probably isn’t a big deal. What you should be focusing on is the _raging inferno_ on this fucking cul-de-sac!”

As Danny bickered back and forth with the police, George walked up to Dylan and stared at the fire. It had taken a while, but they had eventually found a way back upstairs from the basement. Jordon had gone outside and asked the teenagers who called them there if they had any gasoline, and one of them grabbed a canister from their house and gave it to Jordon. They had only put the gasoline on the first floor, since Jorel didn’t want them to risk going upstairs and falling through the floor again. Dylan had started the fire with his lighter, standing way too close to the gasoline for Danny’s liking, and the house went up in flames. Most of it had been George’s idea, and the others just went along with it. Jordon, Dylan, and Jorel had seemed almost eager to set something on fire. Danny just didn’t want to get blamed for the whole thing and kept saying throughout the whole process that it was crazy and he would leave them in the dust if they got arrested, but they knew that he would either bail them out or find a way to break in just so he could give them a motherly scolding.

The three teenagers who had called them were all curious about what had happened inside the house. Having the mentality of a teenager himself, Jorel decided to tell them about everything that had happened to him inside the house. George didn’t hear much of it, but he did catch something about mannequins and Windows XP, so he just tuned Jorel out after that.

Danny hung up on the police and approached the others. “Not a word of this to the cops.”

Dylan nodded. “You got it, man.”

Jorel walked up to Danny, leaving the three teenagers standing on the lawn of one house. “Yo, are we done here? I wanna sleep.”

Danny shook his head. “Sorry, man, but the police want to hear exactly what happened. They might even take us to the station.”

Jorel tilted his head back and let an exasperated groan. “Seriously?”

Danny waved towards the car. “Feel free to have a nap until they get here.”

Jorel glanced back at the car. He grumbled under his breath, but he shoved his hands in his pockets and trudged over to the vehicle.

Dylan walked up to Danny and slung an arm around his shoulders. “So, didja hear Jorel’s story with the mannequins?”

Danny nodded, his brow furrowed with concern. “Yeah. I don’t understand why someone would have a room full of mannequins. Maybe the person who owned the house was a seamstress or something. And I don’t get why they possessed the house, either. Ghosts usually just haunt the places they die in.”

Jordon nodded. “Yeah. And what about the screaming those kids said they heard? We didn’t hear any of that shit.”

George shrugged. “Maybe they really were pranking us and just happened to choose a house that was actually haunted.”

“Who knows, homie?” Dylan said, gazing up at the burning house.

“Hey!” Jorel’s voice shouted from the car. He poked his head out of the open window and held up a Snapple bottle. “Is this someone’s Snapple, or can I have it?”

Danny rushed over to take the bottle from Jorel’s hands. “Jordon, why the _fuck_ didn’t you throw that out?”

George rolled his eyes, but he followed Danny to the car to give him a hand. Dylan and Jordon gazed after them, and Dylan smirked. He glanced back at the flaming house. “Y’know, I think this is one of our best fires.”

Jordon shrugged. “Eh. We can do better.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Jordon nodded. “Next haunted house.”

Dylan grinned and took another blunt from his pocket. “Sick.”

**Author's Note:**

> wOW that was a garbage fire 
> 
> but i'm gonna write another chaotic one-shot for christmas and no one can stop me


End file.
